Tag: fresh water fishing

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Can A Mussel Affect Freshwater Fishing?

I was reading an interesting article about quagga mussels and how they’re affecting the Great Lakes and their run-off rivers and creeks. It seems they’re also affecting many lakes in California too! Here’s the article I read:

http://www.record-bee.com/sports/ci_12456316

So I was curious and did a look-up of these quagga mussels on wikipedia:
Quagga Mussels on Wikipedia

There’s even a map on wikipedia to show you how bad the spread of the mussels has become throughout the US. Pennsylvania has 2 known locations; none in New Jersey or Maryland yet.

These mussels are VERY prolific and just one mussel can take over a whole lake within a short amount of time. Seems they clean the water by siphoning off the plankton, but this in turn takes away the food that young freshwater fish need. So the fish population is definitely affected by these non-native intruders.

There is one hope though, it seems that yellow perch have developed a liking to these things and may help in the effort in trying to get them under control.

This is just another example of how mankind’s carelessness can cause great devastation on our environment. Let’s all try to be more conscious of our actions and their effect on our environment – what do you say?

Hope you have a great week and I’ll catch you later.

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Springtime Freshwater Fishing Success

After working some OT yesterday, I came home to my younger son asking to go fishing! So of course I was only too happy to oblige!

I decided that we would go to our local lake and try fishing there for a change – rather than going to the creek which is right around the corner.

The usual access to the lake was blocked as the folks who own property adjacent to the lake were doing some construction, so we took the long way around and fished in the coves. My son was using worms for bait and he had his first success using the worms. He caught a nice pumpkin seed sunfish.

After a while, he tried a grub for bait. (We had dug up some worms before we left home and also found three grubs which we threw in for the heck of it.) It was like throwing steak into the middle of a hungry pack of wolves! The bait hardly hit the water before he hooked a nice Roach! (picture below) Another grub on the hook and bam – a nice sun fish. He had a bad cast over some bushes and lost his last grub, but my son’s really excited about using grubs for bait now. Here’s his Roach.


Freshwater Roach

Being the curious 5 year old that he is, he asked me why the fish liked the grubs so much. I showed him how the grubs oozed some of their insides when they went on the hook and explained that the fish could smell that. I asked him if he liked the smell of a nice fresh grilled hamburger? He said “sure Dad”. And I explained that the grub’s oozings smelled like that to the fish! He seemed OK with that explanation and talked about getting more grubs for our next trip. 🙂

After a while, he got tired of fishing and decided he’d sit and watch Dad fish for a bit. So I tried on my old trusty rubber worm and caught a nice Calico Bass – or as southerners call them – a “Crappie”. Here’s a picture:


Freshwater Roach

I tried another cove and had a couple of hits from a large pickerel, but was unsuccessful in setting the hook. (It can very very hard setting a hook with all those teeth in a pickerel!) It was dinner time by then and we headed back home after having a nice successful time freshwater fishing at the lake!

Hope your fishing trip was successful as well!

Catch you later.

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Freshwater Fishermen Pollute The Water?

I like to think that I’m environmentally concscious. But this report I just read is making me re-think my favorite lure!

You can read the reort here:

Study: Soft plastic lures harm trout, salmon

I ocassionally lose a rubber worm in the water, but I’ll try everything I can to get it back. (I hate to lose lures!) Still, there are times that I lose them. I’ve never given much thought to what happens with those lost lures, but this report has made me re-think how and whether I’ll continue to use them.

It certainly makes a stronger case for using natural bait as opposed to rubber/plastic lures!

My hope is that with today’s technology, the lure manufacturers can come up with a new improved rubber worm that will dissolve in the fish’s stomach after coming into contact with the fish’s stomach acid.

I know that may sound a little utopic in light of all the problems our world faces today, but hey … I’m an optomist at heart!

So what do you think about this latest revelation? Still think we should use rubber/plastic worms for fishing?

Catch you later.

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Fresh Water Fishing – Lures vs Bait

It seems that wherever fishermen are, there will always be a debate as to which is better for consistently catching fish – lures or bait.

My brother and I used to fish together very frequently when we were younger. He was a bait fisherman much more so than I. We found a great little freshwater fishing stream close to our house which was crammed full of catfish. We enjoyed fishing there and would even get up early on Sunday mornings, before Sunday School, and go fishing for an hour or more.

He would use a bobber and live worms and I would use my secret spinner (the one I used to catch that mysterious fish in my last post!) Being true Americans, we would always be competing to see who could catch the most fish! It was always very close. Some days he would win, other days I would. We would always catch more than 1 too – never kept them – strictly catch and release.

No one I talked to ever used a spinner to catch catfish and they all looked at me as if I was a little crazy for even thinking about it! 😉 In our area, catfish were considered bait only fish! But trust me, my spinner was deadly for catfishing! I would cast it out, let it sink to the bottom and then slowly reel it in, twitching it every once in a while. The catfish loved it!

So which was better? Our conclusion was that neither was better. It came down to a preference on the fisherman’s part. I still prefer lures over bait. But I’ll use bait when I don’t have what I consider to be an appropriate lure for the type of fish I’m after.

How about you? Which do you prefer, lure or bait? Leave a comment and let me know?

Catch you later!

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What Is This Fresh Water Fish?

With the weather warming up, I grabbed my sons and we did some freshwater fishing on Thursday afternoon. We only had about an hour so we ran down to our local creek. It was high tide, so I had high hopes for the afternoon.

After getting my younger son set-up with some worms, I started using a lure that is about 37 years old! It’s an old spinning lure with a single hook and some flopping silver pieces. I usually only use this for spring fishing and decided to give it a try. After my first few casts, I had a hit and eventually caught a fish. But it was one of those fish we’re just not 100% sure of what type it is!

Here’s a photo of it:
The unknown freshwater fish

So if you think you know what it is, please post a comment here?!?

As it turned out, it was the only fish that we caught in the short amount of time we had. But we had fun and the boys are ready to go again – so maybe this weekend?

Have a great weekend and I’ll catch you later!

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Fresh Water Fishing Spring Reel Cleaning

Taking a break from taxes, I thought I’d share some knowledge I learned last weekend. We went fishing (my sons and I) last weekend and I brought my reel out from the garage. It was hard to crank and I wondered what it was that was causing this. We were short on time so I went with the reel the way it was and had a nice few hours.

After coming home, I pulled the reel off of my rod and started to disassemble it. It was then that I remembered that the last time I had cleaned the reel, I ran out of my good ole Garcia-Mitchell grease that I’d had for years! Wanting to go fishing the next day, I used some lithium grease that I had out in the garage. BIG mistake! The grease had become very stiff and had turned some of the inner reel parts a greenish color – not what I wanted to see!

So I took the reel completely apart – including removing the ball bearings from the reel spindle shaft. Did you know that there are 17 ball bearings on each side of the shaft. (That makes 34 ball bearings total.) And these ball bearings are just a tad bit bigger than a pin head! Fortunately I had bought some Southbend reel grease over the winter and used that to clean and lubricate everything – and I mean everything! After putting it all back together, it works much more smoothly and fluently.

So take a lesson from me – always use quality reel grease when cleaning and lubricating your freshwater fishing reel!

Want to see the quality grease I used? Here it is:

Catch you later!

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Does anyone want to share their favorite spring bass fishing techniques and tips?

I am a fan of soft plastic tubes and worms. Can you give me some of your favorite techniques?

North shore of the lakes will warm up faster due to getting more sun shine and the prevailing southerly winds. Fish those banks, outside bends in the channel, drop offs near there, with craw fish imitators….either crank baits or jig w/ trailer.
Start when the water reaches 50 deg. Big females spawn first.
If you lake has a shore with black shale or black clay fish them hard….especially if there is a drop off of more than 5 ft. like from 15 to 20 or more. This has worked for me for a long time now.
Tubes will work under the same conditions sense they imitate a craw. Tube colors I like are Road Kill / Chartreuse tips, Brown cold, green flake / orange tips, of course Black blue tips as well. I do not use worms until the water gets in the upper 50's or after spawn.
Spinner Baits also work well this time of year as do crank baits worked slow….remember I am talking "early spring" pre-spawn, when the bass are starting to stage off their spawning grounds.

** Added ** Float N Fly is a real good technique when the water is below 50 degrees. Works great from around Dec. – late Feb, early March. I use it during this time for Small Mouth Bass in S. Central Ky, and Tn.

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My Son’s New Freshwater Fishing Rig

We went to the store a few weeks ago to get some new cleats for my son so he could play soccer. While there, I happened to notice the fishing section of the store and decided to go check it out. Of course my young son wanted to come along with me!

They were running a pre-season sale on most of the fishing gear and I noticed a nice Zebco 11 freshwater fishing rod and reel. It was an ultralight combo (spin casting) and the reel had a trigger that you use to hold the line until you’re ready to let it go when casting. It looked perfect for my 5 year old. Here’s a picture of the reel:

The rod it was attached to was a six footer and would nicely replace the “spiderman” rod/reel combo he used last year! 🙂 (The “spiderman” rod was about 3 feet long and we had problems when fishing the local creek last year because his rod wouldn’t reach out over the weeds and shrubs on the bank of the creek.) So I showed it to him and asked if he wanted it – his response was a shriek of delight and then “oh yeah Dad”!

We bought the “Zebco 11” combo and hopefully we’ll get to try it this or next weekend! I’ll let you know if we were successful.

Catch you later.

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Freshwater Fishing Contest In New Jersey

Hey – I was reading through the news from the Press of Atlantic City.com and found out about a fishing contest for salt as well as fresh water fishing! Here’s a quote from their article:

Bent Rods Contest

The Press Bent Rods Fishing Contest opens Wednesday with cash prizes of $50 and a trophy for the winners in Freshwater, Other Than Boat (surf, pier, jetty, banks), Boat Bay/Inshore (inside three miles), Offshore (outside three miles), Youth Saltwater (under 15), Youth Freshwater (under 15), Women, Senior (65 and older), Most Unusual Catch, Flounder, Striped Bass, Bluefish, Weakfish, Kingfish.

The season-long contest runs to Nov. 30, and within that, seasonal segments offer three prizes each. They are April 5-June 21 for Freshwater, Youth, Striped Bass; June 22-Sept. 20 for Flounder, Offshore, Inshore; Sept. 21-Nov. 29 for Striped Bass, Bluefish, Weakfish. The winners of those each get $150 gift certificates at participating bait and tackle shops or marinas.

Anglers can enter and submit photos and details of their catch online at www.pressofatlanticcity.com/bentrods or by mail. There is no cost or pre-registration, but the fish must be entered at a certified weigh station. Entry forms are available at most area bait and tackle shops or marinas.

The entry list will be updated online all season long with every catch submitted, and it can be seen - along with Press Fishing Contest records, a list of weigh stations and Shep on Fishing columns - on the Web site. The Press Fishing Contest Leaderboard will appear in the Sports section every couple of weeks during the season.

I’m not a big contest fisherman – I do it because I like it and it’s fun! But if it gets more people involved, then I’m all for it. So go check out the contest and I wish you luck!

Catch you later!

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A Freshwater Fishing Weekend Bonus!

I went to Somerset, NJ this past weekend with my wife for the FLENJ conference. That’s the Foreign Language Educators of New Jersey – for those not in the know! 😉 I was looking forward to a nice relaxing time – spending quality time with my 5 year old son at the pool and jacuzzi!

I was surprised to see that the building next to where we were staying – the Garden State Exhibit Center was having a Saltwater Fishing Expo. Now, I’m not a big saltwater fishing fan, as you may have guessed by now, but I do like to go saltwater fishing ocassionally. So I looked up the event on the Internet and found that they were giving the kids a free Plano tackle box for the first 100 that showed up on Saturday. I asked my son if he wanted a new tackle box and sure enough he said yes!

So we went to the Expo and he got a new tacklebox. And even though it was a saltwater fishing expo, we were able to find some fresh water fishing lures and bobbers. The Nikon exhibitors even gave my son a new Nikon Frisbee!

In addition to all the exhibitors with rods, reels, lures and the other paraphenalia – there were large fishing power boats to be looked at and even kayaks for those with less offshore endeavors in mind! They also had casting contests for the kids and fish cooking sessions with other numerous instructional workshops. My son was getting tired after a while and we headed back to our hotel for some more swimming, but we had a very enjoyable time at the Expo.

We opened all the lures and put them in their “correct” spots (the way my son wanted them!) once we returned home and now he can hardly wait to go try them out! I’ll get my fishing license this week and hopefully we can start the new year off with a successful freshwater fishing trip next weekend.

Catch you later.